Ozzie Guillen Won't Protect Adam Dunn

White Sox manager/crazy person Ozzie Guillen doesn't need or use stats to fill out a lineup card and, for that, Juan Pierre thanks him. Guillen also doesn't care if a player might break the single season strikeout mark as long as that player isn't hurting the team. So Guillen won't sit Adam Dunn and his .160/.290/.302 line. Wait, what?

"I will sit him down if he's not helping the ballclub, but not because of a mark," Guillen said Sunday. "Not at all, no. (If) we need him to take a break and give somebody a chance, I will do it.

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"(But) I just worry about putting the best guys out there every time," Guillen said.

"Every time Dunn or (Alex) Rios is there, I feel like they have a chance. But it's not what I feel. It's how they feel."

Dunn has crossed the Godfather III threshold into the "made a donation in your name present" territory on the chart of disappointment this season. Dunn is having the worst year of his career and it's not even close. His strikeout rate is the highest of his career at 36.4% and his .274 wOBA is 79 points worse than his previous low. Even removing most of his atrocious defense by DHing and playing a little fist base, Dunn is still putting up a -1.6 WAR which, by definition, means he's worse than a replacement level player.

But, Ozzie keeps running him out there and hoping for the best. So far this season, the "best" is 1-4 with three strikeouts. The strikeouts are piling up (122 in 335 plate appearances) but he is still a long way from Mark Reynolds magical 223 strikeout record season of 2009. Fangraphs ZiPS is projecting 81 strikeouts for the rest of the season leaving Dunn with a mere 203. Of course, those projections don't have Dunn accumulating over 600 plate appearances so maybe they were nervous about Guillen pulling the plug on Dunn's terribleness. Silly projections.

Ozzie Guillen Will Keep Bunting Thank You

Master strategist, White Sox manager and occasional English-speaker, Ozzie Guillen, recently made it clear that he is a fan of the bunt. And why shouldn't he be? It's a near automatic out (unless it's craftily deployed against the shift) but it did help Jake Taylor fictionally win the pennant for the Indians circa 1989. In the past week, the Ozzies have bunted into a triple play and killed a four-run inning by bunting into a force out. But Ozzie is steadfast in his belief in the Tao of the bunt...

"Listen, I grew up bunting," Guillen said Thursday. "My baseball game is bunting. We win a lot of games bunting. I will stay with them. The guys who can bunt, I will bunt them. We hit a lot of double-play balls because we're not that fast. That's why I will take advantage of that."

Did he just say they win a lot of games bunting? Now I know where Oney gets his delusion from. The apple doesn't fall far from the crazy plant. Luckily, I'm not a White Sox fan but I do love Ozzie because he seems mentally unstable.

The bunt, especially the sac bunt, are usually a terrible waste of an out. Bunting Adam Dunn every once in a while to beat the shift? Brilliant. But I don't have that much faith in Ozzie. Also, can we stop praising Ron Gardenhire as a great manager? If he sac bunts in the first inning of a playoff game again, I'll... Probably just blog about it. I thought I had something more threatening there for a minute.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Off Base Percentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy: Chris Bosio



Yankees 6, Athletics 2. That's five straight for the defending champions after A.J. Burnett allowed two earned runs in seven solid innings and Mark Teixeira continued a good July with a three-run bomb in a five-run Yankees' fourth. Teixeria is 9-for-25 (.360) with two home runs and 9 RBIs in seven July games. Nick Swisher had a big night as well, falling a triple short of the cycle. This should help Swisher's online candidacy for the final AL all-star spot as it is being reported that Frankie Nostrils late Wednesday got on his computer and voted 11,000,000 times. This time it counts.

Giants 15, Brewers 2. Buster Posey Watch: 4-for-4, 2 HR (1 GS), 6 RBIs. Tim Lincecum also gave up one earned run and struck out 10 in seven innings after allowing 17 earned runs in 27 innings in four previous starts against Milwaukee. Brewers starter Chris Narveson was simple SuperIrabuian, scattering nine hits and nine earned runs in 3 1/3 IP. Milwaukee third baseman Casey McGehee on bouncing back Thursday: "We are not going to go out there defeated before we go out there." McGehee's correct, there's no way Milwaukee can lose before the game begins.

Whitesox 5, Angels 2. Chicago won despite making five errors. That's just OzzieGuillenSmartBall.

Rockies 8, Cardinals 7. The rest of the St. Louis bullpen saw what Ryan Franklin did in the ninth inning Tuesday (1/3 IP, 6 ER) and said anything Ryan can do we can do just as poorly. The Cards, fresh off blowing a six-run, ninth-inning lead and losing 12-9, coughed up a 7-4 cushion in the eighth Wednesday as Colorado won its third straight on Chris Iannetta's lead off homer in the ninth.

Marlins 4, Dodgers 0. Despite the fact that Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez was given the NL Cy Young award last month, Florida's Josh Johnson can still finish second. The righty was brilliant again Wednesday, limiting LA to six hits in eight fantastic innings. Johnson in his last 11 starts, spanning 79 innings, has given up seven earned runs (0.80 ERA).